Alta Industrial and Broccolini are teaming up to develop the Alta Industrial Park in Coteau-du-Lac, which can now offer over 17 million square feet to companies seeking to set up their operations in the greater Montreal area.

Both parties are pleased with the partnership and say it is a good fit for the new phase of development.

“We can bring our expertise of the ‘one stop shop’ of construction development, property management networking and help them develop the property more rapidly and thus everyone can come out a winner,” explained Roger Plamondon, president of real estate development and acquisitions at Broccolini.

The company has been involved in the construction of distribution centres for Canadian Tire in Quebec and Ontario, the Ikea distribution centre, Target and Amazon.

“We know the region well, we know the sector well. We have built a lot of distribution centres, so we are very confident that we will be able to entice people to come and implement their distribution centres on that site,” said Plamondon.

“We had worked with Alta in the past. We acted as the general contractor for Canadian Tire’s distribution centre here in Quebec and they located in Coteau-du-Lac on the Alta property. Once it got dezoned, we started talking a little more with each other and came to the conclusion that this might be a very good marriage.”

The property in Coteau-du-Lac, owned by Alta Group, is close to 43 million square feet. From 1989 to 2008 Alta developed the first phase, which was 17 million square feet. Canadian Tire bought 7.3 million square feet for its distribution centre. In 2008, Alta asked permission to dezone 17.5 million square feet after giving away 4.5 million square feet for conservation and compensation of wetlands, explained Pierre Latreille, president of Alta Industrial, adding it took nine years of court battles to get the land dezoned and another year to get the proper documents to start development.

Six million square feet of building space will be offered in the 17.5 million square feet of land. Alta still owns another 4.5 million square feet of land for future development adjacent to the site.

“It’s not easy to get land rezoned anywhere,” said Latreille. “The land that we have now is ready to welcome industries. We are looking at a lot of logistics people or people who require distribution centres.”

Latreille said the partnership with Broccolini will enable the company to ramp up the development of the park quickly, which is something that appeals to many companies.

“Broccolini is a major player and we wanted to have a good strong company to partner with to get it to a new stage,” said Latreille.

The site, located southwest of Montreal, also boasts a number of benefits including that it is well situated in terms of access to markets in Quebec, Ontario and the United States. It is located in proximity to major highways in the area and Quebec’s main economic corridor. It also has a direct link to the main track of the Canadian National Railway, he added.

Infrastructure is already in place as well.

“Everything is there,” said Plamondon. “Natural gas, fibre optics, electricity, there is a massive raw water supply to the site that is pumping directly out of the St. Lawrence, so there is no shortage of raw water, which is very rare in an industrial park.”

Although it is still in the early stages, the developers are working with interested companies looking to set up shop in the area.

“We hope in spring or summer 2019 we will announce the start of development there,” said Latreille.